“What do you mean by coming here?  What do you want?” he demanded, hoarsely.  “You come here with your hands red with blood.  Two men are dead. ...  Four others smashed under the hoofs of your police! ...  You’re trying to starve into submission thousands of men.  You’re striking at them through their wives and babies. ...  What do you care for them or their suffering?  You and your father are piling up millions—­and every penny a loaf stolen from the table of a workingman! ...  There’ll be starving out there soon. ...  Babies will be dying for want of food—­and you’ll have killed them. ...  You and your kind are bloodsuckers, parasites! ... and you’re a sneaking, spying hound. ...  Every man that dies, every baby that starves, every ounce of woman’s suffering and misery that this strike causes are on your head. ...  You forced the strike, backed up by the millions of the automobile crowd, so you could crush and smash your men so they wouldn’t dare to mutter or complain.  You did it deliberately—­you prowling, pampered puppy. ...”  Dulac was working himself into blind rage.

Bonbright looked at the man with something of amazement, but with nothing of fear.  He was not afraid.  He did not give back a step, but, as he stood there, white to the lips, his eyes steadily on Dulac’s eyes, he seemed older, weary.  He seemed to have been stripped of youth and of the lightheartedness and buoyancy of youth.  He was thinking, wondering.  Why should this man hate him?  Why should others hate him?  Why should the class he belonged to be hated with this blighting virulence by the class they employed? ...

He did not speak nor try to stem Dulac’s invective.  He was not angered by it, nor was he hurt by it. ...  He waited for it to subside, and with a certain dignity that sat well on his young shoulders.  Generations of ancestors trained in the restraints were with him this night, and stood him in good stead.

Ruth stood by, the situation snatched beyond her control.  She was terrified, yet even in her terror she could not avoid a sort of subconscious comparison of the men.

“Mr. Dulac! ...  Please! ...  Please! ...” she said, tearfully.

“I’m going to tell this—­this murderer what he is. and then I’m going to throw him out,” Dulac raged.

“Mr. Foote came to see me,” Ruth said, with awakened spirit.  “He is in my house. ...  You have no right to act so.  You have no right to talk so. ...  You sha’n’t go on.”

Dulac turned on her.  “What is this cub to you?  What do you care? ...  Were you expecting him?”

“She wasn’t expecting me,” said Bonbright, breaking silence for the first time.  “I came because she didn’t get a square deal. ...  I had to come.”

“What do you want with her? ...  You’ve kicked her out of your office —­now leave her alone. ...  There’s just one thing men of your class want of girls of her class. ...”

At first Bonbright did not comprehend Dulac’s meaning; then his face reddened; even his ears were enveloped in a surge of color.  “Dulac,” he said, evenly, “I came to say something to Miss Frazer.  When I have done I’m going to thrash you for that.”